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This page last updated Tuesday, 06-Sep-2005 12:28:13 EDT.

Role Playing News

Editorials, Commentaries, and Reviews:

• Editorial: How to Start a Role-playing Game
  
• From the Editor
  
• Commentary: Plot-driven Games
  
• Book Review: Mirrorshades - The Cyberpunk Anthology
  
• Entertainment Review: The Trouble with Harry
  
• Call of Cthulhu: A Review
  

How to Start a Role-playing Game

I like games that are challenging. Games that have a strong plot in which the players are the leads. What I don't like is hack and slash. I don't like games in which the bulk of the plot is to kill your way through something just to reach some goal that I really could not care about. But, there are many GMs that run games like that, and I am tired of them. I want to develop an interesting character, and I want the story to naturally involve that character.

An example of the simplistic plots that I am talking about are the games that begin, "There is a [blank] that wants you and some others to go and [blank] in order the defeat [blank], and if you do it you will receive [blank]." You can fill in the blanks with whichever game you want. This in and of itself does not mean that a game is not going to be good, but it takes me much longer to get into it, and many times the character I have just does not work in that game.

As a change, I would like to see games that start more like adventure books or movies start. "While you were walking down the street a man comes up to you and drops a gem in your bag. As he leaves, not even saying a word to you he is shot in the back by an arrow." This beginning gives me choices that I can make in character. A good plan for a start will give me only choices that make me have to become involved.

I don't like having to compromise a character concept or force a character to get into a game. In a game about a year ago, the GM had not made any attempt to involve my character in the game. I did not want to do the work to justify why my character would care and so my character never became involved. Other characters of mine have wandered away from games when I felt that they were no longer interested in the direction the game was moving.

We talk about having good character concepts and developing a good image of what your character is. That is the players job in creating a good game. The GM's job is to take these concepts and tunnel them into a plot that has meaning to the players. I do not pretend that this is easy. However, good players will many times write their own stories.

I often write character histories that are open. I don't say exactly where my character came from, or who his parents are. I many times leave the details as an opening for the GM to use, but at best they become minor points in a larger game.

I hope that in future games GMs may think about how their characters fit together. Perhaps before planning a campaign, GMs should ask for character histories. Then with the histories plan a game around them. I would not have a problem with waiting for a while after rolling up a character before the game started. This could also give a chance for the GM to make minor changes to characters so they can be involved and even interrelated. These details can be known by the GM and only reveled to the players over time.

It is a great feeling when you piece something together. It is enjoyable when you finally understand why two apparently unrelated characters ended up together, or why everyone had an interest in the gem in your pouch. That is the fun in gaming.

From the Editor

No you did not miss your last issue. The staff just took a month off in order the refresh their minds. We now have many new ideas and news to write about. As always, we hope that you will write us and share your news and ideas.

Even though we did not put out an RPN last month, we were busy. RPN now has a page on the web. It contains stories from RPN as well as info for new readers. Check it out and let us know what you think.

Plot-driven Games

What is a plot-driven game? It's one where the GM has some basic story that will unfold during the (many) sessions of gaming. This begs a question, though. If the GM has a story line, what happens if the characters go outside of it? What if they, by accident or design, 'break' the plot?

The simplest answer would likely be, "the GM shouldn't let them do such a thing." Well, yes. But such a vague answer could mean many different things to many different people. If one GM takes it to mean that he/she will limit the players' choices in order to keep them from 'leaving' the plot, then I think that's a sign of a GM who needs more practice. I wouldn't want to play with someone who says something like, "you can't take your car and drive to upper-state New York and hide out in a nudist colony until the heat is off," just because they didn't plan for it.

Obviously, the GM doesn't have to be so overt about it. In the above example, the car may die, or the cops may put up roadblocks, etc. You get the idea. The GM can limit the players' choices without them realizing that it's to keep them in the story. However, for the most part, I'm still uncomfortable with that. No GM will plan for everything. Nevertheless, the GM should have in mind some obvious ways the players could go completely off track of what's planned, and try to have at least a base idea of what to do then. Yes, it requires some GMing on the fly, but could reap greater rewards as it may add untold dimensions to the plot. As long as the GM has a few basic contingencies planned, his/her story line should remain safe.

What I've written so far are some ideas on how to handle things when players go outside of a plot 'by accident.' There will, occasionally, be some jerk who delights in trying to destroy the GM's careful planning for the sheer, malicious delight of it. In such a case, frag the bastard and play without him/her next time.

Well thought-out stories are some of the best role-playing experiences, simply because they are usually deeper than a "bunch of adventures run with the same characters." I'm running one and playing in another, and I'll be saddened a bit to see either end. Hopefully, this article will inspire someone to start on a story of their own, were they want the characters to be played rather than written.

Mirrorshades - The Cyberpunk Anthology

Mirrorshades - The Cyberpunk Anthology, edited by Bruce Sterling, is an anthology of cyberpunk works includes the names of William Gibson, Greg Bear, Bruce Sterling and other greats of the genre. Each story references the bleak future of cyberlife with a unique perspective of how the next forty to eighty years could be transformed through technological breakthroughs and governmental breakdowns.

My personal favorite is "Mozart in Mirrorshades", a combined effort of Bruce Sterling and Lewis Shiner. In the course of time-jumpers building a refinery in Mozart's hometown of Salzburg, the natives are torn between maintaining their culture and accepting the abrupt deluge of technology the time-jumpers bring to them. Even Wolfgang learns the cyberpunk way can't be beat - especially when he can have the beat in another time than his own, and be paid big bucks for it.

A definite must for those looking at the bright future with shades.

The Trouble With Harry

Some of the best psychological thrillers were written, directed, produced and acted in, by Alfred Hitchcock. His movies were done in a style that send shivers up your spine or make you sit on the edge of your seat gnawing your knuckles in suspense. But even a master of horror needs a break and The Trouble With Harry is a classic piece of black humor.

John Forsythe is a struggling artist in a small Vermont town where everyone knows each other and all their doings. He meets Shirley MacLaine, a widowed mother of one son, Jerry Mathers, during the inquiry about a body he stumbled across in his search for a place to sketch. The story that unravels from there is a comedy of errors including three people who are convinced they killed Harry, the burials and subsequent retrievals of the cadaver, and the ominous closet door in the cottage.

A treat for any Hitchcock fan, this movie elicits many a laugh as it pokes fun at the traditional murder mystery.

Call of Cthulhu: a Review

I've always loved the horror genre, and was entranced when introduced to the stories of Howard Philips Lovecraft a few years ago. Being a gamer, I immediately went out and bought a used copy of the Call of Cthulhu role-playing system. Now, I admit that I've only experience with a handful of commercially-available systems, but CoC is the best I've seen. Its operation is simple and flexible, it is easily adaptable to a wide variety of genres, and most importantly (to me, anyway), it wonderfully recreates the feel of Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. Since Lovecraft wrote in the 1920's (for the most part), that's the basic setting of the game, although there is information in the rulebook for years ranging from the 1880's to today. Any moderately imaginative GM can easily put it in other eras, from the fantasy past to the far future (or the not so far future...).

The mechanics, often the most daunting part of any gaming system, are fantastically easy to grasp. There are eight basic attributes for the character, based on a 3d6 system, and four statistics that are figured from those attributes, including your character's sanity. Skills are based on a percentage system, making your level in each one easily grasped. In fact, the character sheets list about 60 common skills along with the base percentages any character would have in them before even putting in any points. The points you do put in are a basic one-point-for-one-percent style. When making characters, while you don't have actual classes, you do decide on a career, which will determine a small number of skills you must take. However, you can take a large variety of skills beyond those, and you can of course take any career that the GM will allow (which could mean anything).

Part of the beauty of such a "generic"-looking system is that it can be used for many different kinds of games, not simply horror. Once again, all that is required for such a thing is the imagination of the GM, to think of what skills may be needed in addition to or instead of those listed, and references to worlds not described in the rulebook (which is the "real" world during the past hundred or so years). Some genres require more work than others. CoC has a number of magic spells, but probably not enough to make it work as a viable magic-fantasy system on its own. Though, all one has to do is have a list of spells from another game, and you're all set.

The strongest point that CoC> has going for it is the ability it has to deliver the atmosphere of the horror genre, especially Lovecraft's gothic (and rather bleak) visions. While most of the work of developing atmosphere for such a game is up to the GM, CoC> makes his/her job easier by lending itself to such a style of game. With some appropriate music in the background, and a GM who will describe in some detail the events, you can truly find yourself being very afraid.

There is one point of CoC that I am not crazy about, though this is simply a matter of taste on my part. In Lovecraft's stories, most of his characters were threatened with going insane due to the terrible secrets they uncovered. Call of Cthulhu faithfully recreates this. Indeed, unless you play a very daring (or very stupid) investigator, your character has as much or more chance of going completely insane than dying (though in either case, you lose your character). I'm not crazy about this sort of thing. However, the "sanity rules" in CoC are very flexible, and if you want to keep the characters from going mad, it's very easy (and it's also easy to make them go more easily mad, as well...).

As a whole, I'd have to give my highest recommendation to Call of Cthulhu. It's easy, comprehensive, and eminently playable.